Kingdoms of Amalur

PC impressions...New RPG still feels rough around the edges...

Presentation, voice acting, and lore are okay enough, but really not that engaging or remarkable in any great sense. For the most part I found myself very quickly just wanting to skip the cutscenes and get straight to the action.

Unfortunately that's not much better, either. Movement and animations feel extremely clunky, and combat is pretty basic and offers little challenge...In short, there's nothing for the hardcore RPG lover here; I felt like I was playing the equally unfulfilling Daggerdale all over again -- one of our lowest scored games. At this point, I'd recommend skipping the demo and game entirely, unless you want the free Mass Effect 3 loot...

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/18159-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-demo-impressions-and-footage/
 
Damn... that's got some potential. The cam sensitivity is WAY too high on 50% though.
 
I played through the demo. Pretty boring. There wasn't anything outright bad about it, but nothing particularly good either.
 
Enjoyed it so far.

Some quirkiness to the camera and have a FOV problem but got into it after a bit. Really like some of the style and flow to the game.

Made it to the first town. I'll probably pick this one up, just not sure when. Good stuff though.
 
PC impressions...New RPG still feels rough around the edges...

Presentation, voice acting, and lore are okay enough, but really not that engaging or remarkable in any great sense. For the most part I found myself very quickly just wanting to skip the cutscenes and get straight to the action.

Unfortunately that's not much better, either. Movement and animations feel extremely clunky, and combat is pretty basic and offers little challenge...In short, there's nothing for the hardcore RPG lover here; I felt like I was playing the equally unfulfilling Daggerdale all over again -- one of our lowest scored games. At this point, I'd recommend skipping the demo and game entirely, unless you want the free Mass Effect 3 loot...

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/18159-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-demo-impressions-and-footage/

Couldn't possibly disagree more. Not sure what kind of game he was expecting, but clearly he wasn't expecting an action RPG. Also he was obviously playing on an AMD GPU since the post processing bug doesn't exist for Nvidia users.
 
but if the ME3 bonus is tied into your Origin account then it only makes sense that those people would definitely need the Origin client to access the bonus gear

Again no, because there are actually multiple existing EA games that link to your EA account yet do not require the client. BF3 again is the only one. Apparently even SWTOR does not require the client either.

An increasingly common way to implement DLC/bonus content is to integrate it into all builds of the game, this means access to the content only requires an "unlock" and not some method of content delivery to actually get it to you.

I'm not saying how ME3 and the Origin client will actually work together, but saying there is no way to know for certain either way at this time. If you are assuming that it will simply because the game is not being sold on Steam, the reasons for that are more complex and likely not full disclosed to the public either.

60 bucks on PC. That price point seems high for this title that doesn't have the reputation of others. So far, the 60 dollar price point on PC games has been reserved for really big titles, I feel like this game should definitely be starting at 50 and not 60. But I guess that's just EA for you.

Downloading the demo on steam, seems interesting nonetheless. Think I will most likely be waiting for a price drop though.

Amazon is offering it for 15% off making it $51.

Pricing for the customer is a result of both the content producer and distributor. But I have a feeling people may be reluctant to admit the latter.
 
Played the demo, I think the game is great. Not sure what people are expecting, every game doesn't have to be the second coming to avoid getting trashed. For an action RPG this is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. There is a ton of content in the demo, lots of character customization, some neat combos with the combat, lots of lore to explore...

Also I like how those guys in the Neoseeker link played the game for 45 minutes and declared the combat simple and lacking challenge. As if most games start off hard or with complicated combat...
 
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Seems to be one of those games that have a slow start (like Risen).
Need to actually play to comment on the actual game though but seems good enough for a $30 price tag :p.
 
Is it not locked camera mouse look with ws=forward back and ad = strafing left and right?

edit: elaborate, kind sir!

Sorry I didn't respond earlier.

The camera is defaulted to being insanely sensitive. The key mapping on default is just odd. When looting, you had to pick each item one by one (unless there was a grab all key). Ranged fighting felt off to me in terms of aiming.

I'm sure most will be fixed. The tutorial itself was quite boring though. Once outside, the world looks quite nice but I only played a few minutes after the tutorial.
 
They left me wanting to see more....so if that's what they are trying to do, it worked. I agree with everyone that the camera sensitivity is too high, I know it's a 3 month old build and obviously there will be some major tweaking before the game is fully released, that is to be expected. It seems like a fun game, felt like Fable with better combat. Interesting graphics, looks like what I imagine WoW would have looked like if they made it a couple years later than they originally did. The music and voice overs are great, they are by no means so-so like the review above stated. For a up and coming game developer, this is a good start. They also fared well by putting it on consoles as well. I just hope they make enough money to continue funding the MMO in the works.
 
I'm going to need to reset my RPG brain for a bit and then get back to this demo. I tried it out last night and just couldn't stomach it. I'm currently playing through Morrowind right now and just "finished" Skyrim before that. This game felt like an RPG for 9 year olds compared to those two. I can sort of see something good there, but my Morrowind goggles are blocking the view right now.:cool:
 
I tried re-enabling post processing about 1/2 through the tutorial section...and it worked :)

After that, the only bug I ran into is some odd hitching, typically at the start of a fight.
 
I'm not sure if I like this, but I've only progressed up to the end of the Well of Souls area. However, most of what I didn't like (FOV, menus and controls) will be better in the release version. Probably.

The one thing I'll never like is third person view; NWN was the only game that implemented a good over-the-shoulder camera, and I only really liked that because I could simulate the 2d isometric look. In other games like Max Payne, I just had to suffer through it until I could get some level of immersion. The FOV is horrible but I imagine that will get fixed.

Aiming with ranged attacks was occasionally maddening and I found myself inadvertently blasting the little dwarfy guys, crates and chests while trying to hit something else. Combat overall was decent; I had some trouble with controls but I'm not blaming the game for that.

Overall, this game pretty much screams console to me and those types of games can be hard for me to get into, but I'm not going to completely rule it out.

I don't know much about AutoHotKey, but this worked to remap the movement controls.

Code:
#NoEnv
 SendMode Input
 SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
 
#IfWinActive ahk_class BigHugeClass
#UseHook
#MaxHotkeysPerInterval 200
Numpad8::w
Numpad4::a
Numpad5::s
Numpad6::d
#UseHook off
 
They left me wanting to see more....so if that's what they are trying to do, it worked. I agree with everyone that the camera sensitivity is too high, I know it's a 3 month old build and obviously there will be some major tweaking before the game is fully released, that is to be expected. It seems like a fun game, felt like Fable with better combat. Interesting graphics, looks like what I imagine WoW would have looked like if they made it a couple years later than they originally did. The music and voice overs are great, they are by no means so-so like the review above stated. For a up and coming game developer, this is a good start. They also fared well by putting it on consoles as well. I just hope they make enough money to continue funding the MMO in the works.

You can adjust camera sensitivity in the options.
 
I can't play this because I'm on AMD graphics. Well, that sucks.

Just my casual observation and nothing else:

How's come it SEEMS like every time something new comes out it's a friggin' disaster for AMD/ATI users?



Seems to be one of those games that have a slow start (like Risen).
Need to actually play to comment on the actual game though but seems good enough for a $30 price tag :p.

They said in interviews they were going to do that on purpose. Start kind of slow (tutorial area) and then once you leave that area, you're off to the races.

In the final game, it's going to be harder, no quasi immortality in the tutorial dungeon, and I'm hoping we get some kind of options on some more camera control because I can't tell you how many times I hit my mouse wheel via my Skyrim habits to want to pull that camera back a little bit.

That's really my only complaint. It ran great for me. Looked great. Love the combat. Love the menus.

There's going to be a lot more depth to this than any demo can show us. Everyone should take the time to see that 22 some odd minute Gamespot video sit down with the devs as they play the PC version and really break it down for everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ph245qWavKs#

^^ That's worth everyone's time. I don't feel like I'm listening to Bobby Kittick there. I think these guys "get it."

Between that and the fact that I went on their FB twice yesterday and someone from the company answered my questions within a handful of minutes pretty much has earned my financial support. I WANT to support these guys and their work. As far as I've concerned, they've earned it.

They even said someone that blazes ass through the game and only does the main quest, doesn't explore, sprints nonstop, etc. is still going to be well into 30-40 hours of gameplay.

That's good enough for me.

$60 for that much entertainment is a no-brainer for me. YMMV.




60 bucks on PC. That price point seems high for this title that doesn't have the reputation of others. So far, the 60 dollar price point on PC games has been reserved for really big titles, I feel like this game should definitely be starting at 50 and not 60. But I guess that's just EA for you.

Downloading the demo on steam, seems interesting nonetheless. Think I will most likely be waiting for a price drop though.

The game is huge. The devs have said that in a number of interview. Worse case scenario: An ass blazer is looking at at least 30-40 hours.

Thorough players like myself? Skyrim territory. 100+ hours.


I'm going to need to reset my RPG brain for a bit and then get back to this demo. I tried it out last night and just couldn't stomach it. I'm currently playing through Morrowind right now and just "finished" Skyrim before that. This game felt like an RPG for 9 year olds compared to those two. I can sort of see something good there, but my Morrowind goggles are blocking the view right now.:cool:

Definitely take those goggles off because this is something COMPLETELY different and anyone that comes into this expecting "cousin of Elder Scrolls" will be disappointed.

That being said, I feel like there's some deceptive layers of depth to what I'm seeing.

I like it. I'm probably going to buy it.
 
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I played the whole 45 minute demo (Make sure you do to if you want to unlock the ME3 bonus) and from what I have seen is that the game definitely has potential to be very excellent and deep with a great story too they do have an excellent dev team that are working on this game. What we are being presented in the demo is just a newbie area with a handful of quests. I thought the voice over’s were excellent, the music felt very atmospheric the loot system is great and once you make it outside to the open area it looked really nice and felt very open to me you can go from point A to B questing or just explore and be rewarded as well (options) we all want them and like them and this game seems to have them.

The game has been in development for the past 6 years and no doubt the world will be huge with tons of stuff for us to do even a crafting system, I salute devs that take their time and give us gamers the depth and entertainment that we so crave for like each item you equip has its own look for example. My most enjoyable thing about the demo is that the bottom line this game is very fun and that’s the main goal is to have fun, I mean by the end of the 45 minutes I wanted more and the things I did were just fun and not boring which these days is hard to get in any game.

I guess what I am trying to say is that most games are missing that FUN factor and this game has it and I guess that comes with a long development cycle and devs knowing what us gamers want. I will pick this one up when it comes out next month :)
 
Love the menus.

I thought there was too much drilldown in some particulars.

For example:

Inventory -> Weapons -> Primary -> Select the weapon -> Press 'use' key to equip

I'd rather see a more classic inventory that shows wep/armor/accessory slots on a single screen. Something along the lines of DA:O would be nice.

Following Torchlight, it would be good to see items stats shown immediately on mouseover.

Little stuff like that. I think the inventory will in some respects be significantly different in the full release, but it can definitely use some tweaking.
 
the developers clearly stated, this demo is off an older build and THEY did not do the demo. TH eonly reason this demo exists is because they had an EA dev team do the demo and didn't take anyone away from the development team.

They said there are a lot of things in the demo that are fixed because it' smonths old (When the other team started on the demo).

would it have been that difficult for them to release a more recent build?...what's the point in releasing a build that is months old?...yes it will give people a taste of the game (which is the main point of a 'demo') but why not give people a more polished version?
 
would it have been that difficult for them to release a more recent build?...what's the point in releasing a build that is months old?...yes it will give people a taste of the game (which is the main point of a 'demo') but why not give people a more polished version?

I see this kind of post every time a demo actually comes out and it's the same answer every time:

When we're actually lucky to get a demo for a game, demos are ALWAYS built off of "earlier than final" builds. That's always the way it's been. I wish it weren't but that's just not how it works and I think most people know that a demo typically isn't the last word on the subject.


What's your complaint (or complaints) with the demo? FWIW, the devs have been VERY good about outlining and describing what the final game will have over it vs the demo on FB, their website, blogs, etc. I'm very impressed with them and the level of two way communication going on between them and gamers.
 
Anyone else laugh their ass off when the put their shield on in the inventory screen? Bwahahah:D
 
Demo was a bit buggy for me as when entering new area's sometimes it felt like a key would stick for a few seconds and my character would run in a direction until a few seconds after... not sure what that was about. Also my character froze one time when talking to a npc. I never played the full 45 minutes of the demo but I did get far enough that I couldn't get any further in the main story-line.

I had no control issues with the ranged combat or close combat. Combat in the demo is very easy but I feel like harder difficulty levels and later stages of the game will prove to be much more challenging. As for combat I think it's pretty good, definitely not as realistic as some games but for a fantasy rpg it's much more enjoyable then dice rolling, turn based combat or crappy realtime combat systems like two worlds or the Gothic series. I guess the only games where I've enjoyed the Combat was Oblivion Modded, Skyrim, Dark Messiah, Severance and Mount and Blade series. All others I felt didn't even really feel good.

Overall though I think the game controls well and the voice acting, storyline and quest are all well done and the combat is enjoyable enough so It's definitely worth the buy to me, but I'll probably wait until I've finished some of my backlog first and until the game goes on sale for less then 40$.
 
I see this kind of post every time a demo actually comes out and it's the same answer every time:

When we're actually lucky to get a demo for a game, demos are ALWAYS built off of "earlier than final" builds. That's always the way it's been. I wish it weren't but that's just not how it works and I think most people know that a demo typically isn't the last word on the subject.


What's your complaint (or complaints) with the demo? FWIW, the devs have been VERY good about outlining and describing what the final game will have over it vs the demo on FB, their website, blogs, etc. I'm very impressed with them and the level of two way communication going on between them and gamers.

it's not a complaint...nor does it have anything to do with being grateful for the release of a demo...I was just curious why demos have to be months old?...it's not like it's much harder for a developer to release a more recent build
 
it's not a complaint...nor does it have anything to do with being grateful for the release of a demo...I was just curious why demos have to be months old?...it's not like it's much harder for a developer to release a more recent build

They mentioned on the offical forums that it is the only way they could get the demo done on time. I don't remember the exact quote off the top of my head and I don't feel like digging around their forums to find it.
 
Every time I pick up the bow, my character freezes but the game seems fine. If I go to inventory to equip it, my character has disappeared and the game no longer responds to keyboard commands but I can still turn the camera.

I tried several times and gave up.
 
Every time I pick up the bow, my character freezes but the game seems fine. If I go to inventory to equip it, my character has disappeared and the game no longer responds to keyboard commands but I can still turn the camera.

I tried several times and gave up.

sounds like my kind of game :)
 
Every time I pick up the bow, my character freezes but the game seems fine. If I go to inventory to equip it, my character has disappeared and the game no longer responds to keyboard commands but I can still turn the camera.

I tried several times and gave up.

Something screwy going on there. I never had that problem and I haven't seen anyone else echo it. At least not yet.
 
it's not a complaint...nor does it have anything to do with being grateful for the release of a demo...I was just curious why demos have to be months old?...it's not like it's much harder for a developer to release a more recent build

Well first up, the demos have to be completed long before they get on XBLA or PSN, since both Sony and MS run all of the content through a QA period (not to find bugs, but to check for compatibility and malware type things). It isn't always easy to just click a few buttons and make a demo, especially when you have a complex open world game. Cutting content files and trying to limit players is an easy way to make things crash with unforeseen consequences (and keep in mind the game streams a lot of content in on the fly). Plus they needed to have the same demo across a 3 platform title, which means splitting up files and limiting game content becomes even harder. So what happens is they created a fork of the game months ago, then EA took the full build and started hacking stuff out of it until they had a demo that functioned similarly on all three platforms. EA did the demo because they required it and 38 Studios was focused on the game. Then EA has to test that (which takes days), and ship that off to Sony and MS, who then has to test that and organize a same day launch across all 3 platforms. Making a multiplatform demo can quickly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and QA time.

Meanwhile the people working on the full game have now had probably 2 or 3 months working on the main code path to apply fixes and make the game better. And the game isn't coming out for another few weeks, so they are likely still fixing and polishing.

Demos are much easier when companies are dealing with a smaller number of platforms, don't have the demo coming out long before the game, have easier to define demo structure (like a fighting game), and don't load content on the fly. Then they don't need as much time to work on the demo builds, so they can send a newer build to PNS / XBLA.

Heck this is one of the only RPG games I can think of that even had a simultaneous XLBA/PSN/PC demo.
 
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it's not a complaint...nor does it have anything to do with being grateful for the release of a demo...I was just curious why demos have to be months old?...it's not like it's much harder for a developer to release a more recent build

The reason demos are older builds of a game is because making a demo isn't nearly as easy as you would think. It takes a lot of work and time and in order for a demo to come out right before the game they have to use a older builder that will have bugs that are in most cases already fixed in newer builds. The only reason this game even got a demo was because EA took one of their teams and put them on the task of making the demo, if it was up to 38 Studios themselves, a demo would not even be released because they didn't have the time to do it.


This is one of the reasons why demos are becoming rare, it cost quite a bit to make one.
 
Got a chance to play this demo more last night/this morning. Combat feels good. It's also a lot better experience playing this one on a controller:eek: Never thought I'd say that but there it is. Had absolutely none of the artifacting/tearing/blackscreen/other graphical issues my buddy had on his ATI card on my 560ti. Ran super smooth. I'm gonna pick this one up. It's on steam, no day 1 DLC/Pre-Order bullshit, they gave us a demo. We should reward this kind of behavior. By comparison I have heard that the 360 version runs like ass, looks like ass, and smells like ass(Buddy with similar rig to mine compared the two).
 
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By comparison I have heard that the 360 version runs like ass, looks like ass, and smells like ass(Buddy with similar rig to mine compared the two).

Might want to tell your buddy to take a shower as that all may be his st@nk@ss smelling up his joint! :p j/k

I did enjoy the game. Using ATI 6870 no issues other than turning off the processing. No major issues that is for a demo.

I liked the game so far and if what I read about this company is legit along with them pushing for Steam release, I'll buy to support them. $60 sucks... but like others have said, if I can get a game that is a blast to play and over 50 hours gameplay, it's well worth it to me but I can understand also waiting for price drops.
 
We should reward this kind of behavior.

YES - I love the ambition.

Still on the fence as to whether I like the game or not, but if it plays reasonably well (and I verify some lefthanded concerns with the final release,) I have no problem buying this near the release date to help get the devs on their feet. I'm thinking $49.99 is my price point.
 
Didn't they said the demo is a alpha build?

I don't know if it's quite that early but yes, it's definitely a bit of an earlier build vs what the final game will be.

If that's the case, then that pretty much guarantees that I'll like the final game even more than I already like the demo. These folks have earned my business.

I'm asking them right now about mods and a Creation Kit for this game since there were rumors to that effect.
 
Good game in many respects. Sound in particular is good. Textures are big and graphics are very blocky and broad but certainly the artistic design is good. Acting is good, story is good.

Runs just fine at max settings at 1920x1080. Slows down when a big instance loads on the fly. Very briefly though.

Good, good, good.

Still not enough for me but if you dig this type of game, well done.
 
Well tried the demo , found it to be alright. Its kind of overwhelming how information is presented to you in the story and a little less straight forward then it should be.

The graphics are decent but not great , textures are a bit on the blurry side but its a console port so there ya go.

The one thing that REALLY pissed me off was the camera angle , some how the developers have taken a few steps back and brought back a "swinging" camera style that makes me want to puke. Its at an odd angle and enemies can sometimes be right in front of you but you can't seem them because they are off camera and that's the kind of shit I expect from a pre 2000 era game not a 2012 game. If they don't work overtime to fix the annoying camera it will ruin the game for me and I'll have to pass.

I don't want to pass but I've done enough 3D console games of the past with bad camera issues that I'm not willing to do them in future games.
 
Well tried the demo , found it to be alright. Its kind of overwhelming how information is presented to you in the story and a little less straight forward then it should be.

The graphics are decent but not great , textures are a bit on the blurry side but its a console port so there ya go.

Agreed. It does come together nicely though and I think the art direction as a whole does well.


The one thing that REALLY pissed me off was the camera angle , some how the developers have taken a few steps back and brought back a "swinging" camera style that makes me want to puke. Its at an odd angle and enemies can sometimes be right in front of you but you can't seem them because they are off camera and that's the kind of shit I expect from a pre 2000 era game not a 2012 game. If they don't work overtime to fix the annoying camera it will ruin the game for me and I'll have to pass.

I don't want to pass but I've done enough 3D console games of the past with bad camera issues that I'm not willing to do them in future games.

Having spent more time with the demo today I'm going to have to agree with this criticism.

I'd like to have the freedom to look all around and including straight up if I want to and I can't at least in this demo. Ideally, I'd like to be able to have control over the camera entirely or at least to some degree. Again, I can't tell you how many times I hit my mouse wheel wanting to pan that camera back like is so easy to do in a TES game.

That's an example of where I feel "constrained" coming of of something like Skyrim although, again, to be fair I certainly didn't go into this expecting something like that nor should anyone else.

I can be honest about this: I think this is going to be a good game but it's a console game. There's no question about it. Now I want to stress this: It's NOT a bad console port or anything like that but it's a console game and probably a very good one. That's what I'm taking away from this demo.
 
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